Ambrose shrugged, all cheer, but his gaze had gone as keen as Merle’s. “That was your mission,” he pointed out. “I don’t know that I’ve seen you fail before.”
Refusing to rise to his bait, I stopped and leaned my hands on the window ledge, staring resolutely out the window at the illusion of freedom. The serene sea, the masses of flowers. Did you know orchids can’t live on their own? She’d looked fragile in that moment, as she hadn’t until then. I felt as if she’d been asking me some other question and I’d been too dense to understand. I had failed. Failed myself, failed her, failed my people, living and dead.
“She has a plan,” I said, feeling the heaviness of my mortal flesh, of the chains that awaited me. “That’s why she summoned us. She’ll explain to you, but she’s somehow divined that you’re a wizard and she wants to keep you on Calanthe—apparently with the misguided notion that you’ll be of some use to her.”
“Is this where I point out Queen Euthalia’s insight and wisdom?” Ambrose asked.
“Why waste it on a doomed man?” I said without turning. “Might as well save it up to kiss her ass, if you can find it under all those clothes. She also offered to keep Sondra.”
“Really. Did she say why?”
She never had, had she? Not exactly. Instead I’d gotten sidetracked by the opportunity to convert her to my cause. “Does it matter?” I countered. “She did and that’s enough for me. I agreed to the deal. You two, at least, will be safe. So are Kara and the rest—she arranged for our ship to escape during the night.”
“Ah, that explains that. What did she ask in exchange?”
“Just that I go along with the charade. She hopes to send two people in your place, as Anure’s emissary hasn’t laid eyes on us yet, and she only needs me to pretend there’s nothing wrong.”
“Which people will she send in our place?” Ambrose asked, as it hadn’t occurred to me to do. Something else she’d distracted me from.
I frowned at the pretty view and turned back to him. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”
The trapdoor levered open and Sondra climbed through, stomping it closed again, the man below exclaiming in annoyance. “Of course it matters,” she said, “which is why I told Her Highness no deal.”
“What?” I rounded on her. Sondra stood on the trapdoor with calm insouciance, hip cocked and arms folded, ignoring the pounding from below. They had sent her clothes—something I hadn’t noticed before when we passed in Lia’s garden, which spoke volumes of the scrambled state of mind the difficult queen had put me in—and wore a simple gown of pale pink that somehow softened her, despite her hard expression and the look of blazing contempt in her eyes.
“Oh, don’t you dare, Conrí.” Her voice shook with quiet rage. Probably lucky for me that she’d been stripped of her weapons and her commitment to weighing the trapdoor closed kept her from advancing on me. I knew that look—and had seen plenty of men take the sight of it with them to their deaths. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“Then don’t,” I advised. “I already took the deal with the queen and you have no authority to abrogate it.”
“Fancy word,” she sneered. “Did you learn that from your father?”
That struck harder, sliced deeper than any blow from a weapon she might’ve wielded. All the more so because I probably had learned it at my father’s knee—and in regard to Anure, too. He’s abrogated the treaties and … A snatch of conversation with his advisers. With it came a fragment of visual memory, a rare image of my father at rest, if not at peace. He sat in a chair, dwarfing it with his large frame, absently stroking his beard as he studied the document he held. And my mother—her ebony hair in coils gleaming with rose-scented oil—leaning over his arm to read also as the other people around the table talked, concern and anxiety thick in the room.
Clearly I’d spied on them when I shouldn’t have. How old had I been? Four or five, if my mother had still been alive. Before that moment I would’ve said I didn’t remember her face. Now the scent of roses filled my mind, along with her fierce hugs and gentle kisses. Beyond strange for those memories to assault me now—unless my impending death brought them up. Or the encounter with Lia, who knew things she shouldn’t. Perhaps she’d messed with my mind somehow.
“Can Queen Euthalia work magic?” I asked Ambrose.
“I am talking to you, Conrí!” Sondra shouted. I decided not to point out the difference between talking and shouting, and ignored her.
“An interesting question,” Ambrose answered brightly, sliding off the bed and grabbing his borrowed staff. “Of course, the Lady Sondra will have to give way if I’m to have my interview. I shall see what I can discover.”
Sondra regarded him sourly, some of her anger dissipating. “She’s a cagey bitch. Don’t go for her I’m-just-a-brainless-beauty routine.”
I laughed and she transferred her glare back to me. “Did you even talk to her that long?”
“It didn’t take long,” she snapped. “Her Highness offered her lousy deal, I told her to fuck herself, then suggested she solve all our problems by marrying you.”
My head throbbed. Scrubbing my hands over my scalp didn’t help. “You didn’t.”
“Well, clearly you didn’t get the job done.” The banging beneath her feet grew louder, the voices more strident.
Setting my teeth, I tried not to growl at her. “I said I’d try. Forgive me for not accomplishing the impossible in less than an hour.”
“I don’t forgive you,” she shot back. “You didn’t even tell her who you are, you obstinate oaf!”
“I’m not him anymore,” I shouted. “Oriel is gone. Lost. Ash and dust and—”
“And you told her you’re in love with me.” Her strident voice drowned out mine. “Why would you say such an idiotic thing?”
That pierced my fury. “I’m not in love with you.”
“I know that!” Sondra waved her hands in impotent frustration, then vented it by jumping up and down on the trapdoor. Below, someone yelped and the pounding ceased for a blessed moment. “So why in great green Ejarat did you say so?”
“I said I loved you more than anyone in the world,” I replied with considerable patience, “because it’s the truth and so she would treat you well here.”
“You don’t tell a woman you’re courting that you love another woman, under any circumstances.” She glared and pulled at her prettily brushed hair. The pounding began again with renewed force and she turned her lethal anger on it. “I don’t know how you could be that stupid,” she added more quietly.
I had been stupid, and shame crawled up my spine. “I told you I’m no good at this court stuff. I’m out of my depth here and I don’t know what you expect.”
“You are my king and I expect you to live up to my goddamn fucking expectations, not give up like a whipped puppy and meekly go to your death!” Her voice broke and tears spilled out. The grief weakened her, and she wavered as the shoving from below lifted her.
I crossed the room, offering her a hand. “If you will, Lady Sondra.”
Dashing away the tears with an impatient fist, she gave me a fierce scowl but took my hand, stepping off the rising angle of the trapdoor. Xichos stuck his head and sword through, spewing threats.
Ambrose waited patiently until he finished, smiling beatifically. “My turn?” he asked when the man wound down. Ambrose flicked a glance at Merle, who winged over to land with delicate precision on the knob of the staff. He croaked grumpily and Ambrose soothed his ruffled feathers. “I know. We’ll ask for our real one. Euthalia is most rational.” He cast me a glance, as if to point out all the ways I wasn’t. “I’m sure she’ll give it back.”
“The crow stays here.” Xichos pointed the sword at Merle. “Or we’ll kill it.”
“Step out of the way,” Ambrose replied. “I have an appointment with Her Highness and I believe you’ve already delayed me unforgivably.”
The guard looked briefly confused, then disappeared below. Ambr
ose turned and winked at me. “That, my dear Conrí, is how magic works.”
And he descended the ladder with all the steady strength of a sound body, Merle riding the staff, majestic head held high. The trap closed, the sound of the lock snicking into place. Sondra turned and punched me.
I rubbed the meat of my shoulder. “Ow.”
“Oh, that didn’t hurt. Baby,” she snarled.
“So much for me being your king,” I remarked mildly.
“Maybe you abrogated that right when you gave up on us.”
Weary, suddenly starving, I went to the food table and began piling food on a plate. Some sort of sliced red meat looked particularly enticing, so I tasted it. Delicious. Shoving several more slices into my mouth, I chewed and added a pile to my plate.
“This is your response,” Sondra said, sounding weary, too. “You’re going to stuff your face.”
I swallowed and gave her a feral grin, pouring a generous mug of rosy wine. “Every doomed man deserves a last meal.”
“Don’t say that. It’s not funny. We have to figure a way out of this.”
“You do have a way out,” I said, pulling out a chair to sit, my plate on the table where I could reach it. “Live on Calanthe. It’s probably the last decent place left. You could do worse.”
“And do nothing while Anure’s emissary hauls you off? Attend parties and orgies while you’re tortured and executed, sure. Allow some poor soul to take my place and suffer in my stead while I prance about in pretty gowns.” Sondra plucked at her pink dress, looking like she’d prefer to slice it to ribbons.
“You’ve earned it,” I said, as firmly as I could. “We fought. We failed in the ultimate quest, but you have a chance now. Isn’t that what we wanted, at heart? You’re out of the mines and you’re free now. You can have a life again.” The one she might’ve had, if Anure hadn’t robbed her of it. But I didn’t say that. My own regrets were too recent and too raw.
“Do you know what she said to me?” Sondra lifted her head, her eyes blue as fresh bruises in her pale face. “She said I could honor you best by living well, and that I should try to conceive your child while I could, so I’d at least have that to carry on your legacy. That we should ask Ambrose to enchant our fertility to guarantee it. That’s why she sent me back, so the three of us could have a moment to do that. She plans to keep Ambrose with her, so we’ll have plenty of privacy.” Her voice had gone tense, threaded with emotions I couldn’t decipher. She didn’t look at me, either, sitting on the edge of the bed she’d chosen, fingers linked between her knees, the fall of golden silk hair veiling her face.
“When I said she should marry you, that it was fated by the prophecy, she laughed in my face.”
“Not everyone believes in prophecies. They’re not exactly reliable.”
“She said even if she wasn’t engaged to Anure, she’d never marry a man in love with another woman. That it was beneath her—and it was beneath me that you held me in so little regard.”
“Did she call him by name?” I asked, curious. Otherwise I could hear Lia laughingly delivering those words as if she’d stood in the room and spoken them.
Sondra widened her eyes incredulously. “That is your reply?”
“She’s so deliberate about calling him His Imperial Majesty, while I’m sure she’s labeling him with vile epithets in her head,” I explained. The grapes were good, too. Sweet and plump. Like Lia’s bosom. I really wondered what she looked like under all that upholstery.
“What in Sawehl has gotten into you?” Sondra stood, came over, and went to lay a hand to my forehead—which I easily batted away.
“The prophecy is nonsense, Sondra, don’t you see?” I drank down the wine, then refilled the cup. It gave me a relaxing, heady rush. Not like the harsh liquors of the towns we’d conquered, or the bottles we’d dug out of abandoned estates. Nobody left the good stuff behind. I should stay wine-drunk until they hauled me off. All that death for nothing. All my vows and certainty, gone to ash. Sorry, Father. “We’re playing a blind game of strategy with a crazy woman. It doesn’t matter what Her Highness of the Flowers thinks about me. I’ve lost, but at least I’ve lost alone and the rest of you can go free.”
My cup empty, I began to pour more wine. But Sondra dashed the goblet from my hand so it shattered on the floor—and wine poured over my borrowed pants. I stood, dusting off the drenching and glanced at the glass pieces scattered across the floor. “I bet that was expens—”
Sondra punched me. Hard enough to make me bite down on the words and my tongue. I dabbed at the blood, glistening bright against the corroded gray of my fingers. “What the—”
“If you lose, we all lose.” Sondra clenched her fists, restraining herself for the moment, using her words to batter me instead. “You never gave up on me before. Don’t do it now.”
“Then we’ve all lost,” I ground out, waving my hands at the pretty prison, then shooting my finger at the paradise outside. “Don’t be fooled by the fact that we don’t stand on a bloody battlefield with the stink of vurgsten in the air. We’ve been defeated. We came a long way, but we’re prisoners of war, Sondra. You’ve been ransomed. Be happy.”
“I never thought I’d see you give up without a fight,” she said with bitter disappointment.
“There’s nothing to fight!” I roared at her. With nothing to pummel, I seized the pitcher of wine and threw it against the wall. It rained glass and fluid red as the blood on my hands. “There! Are you happy? I’ve attacked our prison. Has anything changed? No.”
“Brilliant use of a blunt object,” she drawled, eyes dark with disgust.
“What would you have me use?” I demanded, fingers twitching to throttle something. I wasn’t suited for this. Give me stone to pulverize. Give me soldiers to slay. Hell, give me a battle to plan. “I don’t have my hammer. I don’t even have that stupid sword. Here. Shall I make a bagiroca of a silk napkin and these grapes?”
“Better that than whining yourself into a drunk and acting the martyr,” she bit out.
I stared at her. We’d had hard words between us—beginning when she first called me king over my father’s corpse—but never had she spoken with such contempt. Fitting, I supposed, that at the end I should lose what I gained at the beginning, her regard as my first follower.
“Did you think being king would be easy?” she asked, relenting, though her sympathy ground salt in the wound she’d created with one disappointed look. “You should’ve told her who you are. That might make all the difference.”
You’re a landless man with no title, no bloodline you can claim. How could I explain how I’d wanted Lia to see value in me without calling upon lost Oriel? I didn’t understand it myself. Only that claiming my decimated birthright felt like a final capitulation.
“I’m king of nothing,” I replied, sitting heavily again, heartily regretting that I’d killed the pitcher of wine. King of Regret.
“You call us nothing?” Sondra shot back. “This is where it gets hard, Conrí.”
“Don’t call me that. You’re right—I don’t deserve it.”
“This is where it gets hard, Conrí,” she repeated. “Smashing heads is easy compared with using your own. Have you forgotten your promise to me?”
I ask only to hold the torch. “No. But I don’t see how I can fulfill it, now,” I admitted.
“Then figure it out,” she ordered, all battlefield steel. “You have people counting on you. Your death would not be only your own. You gave up that privilege a long time ago. You don’t have the luxury of giving up, because if you do, you take all of our hopes with you.” She gave me that lethal smile. “Don’t disappoint me, Conrí. You know what happens to those who do.”
Standing there in the pink silk gown, her lovely hair cascading around her shoulders, her face set in harsh, demanding lines, she’d never reminded me more of the bald, scrawny, ash-streaked and filthy creature who’d demanded that I become king.
And I knew then what I had to do.
>
21
I sensed the wizard’s approach well before he entered my garden. Like the golden glow of Sawehl’s sun before it breached the horizon. The orchid ring seemed to stretch, then resettle itself on my finger, the band gently hugging my skin like a kitten settling delicate claws in a sleepy embrace.
Whether in deference for the wizard’s twisted leg or a warrior’s healthy instincts that made him wary, Xichos escorted Ambrose without the brusque treatment he’d shown Con and even Sondra. As Ambrose laboriously crossed the garden toward me, leaning heavily on his staff, I mentally reviewed the conversation with the hard woman, as abbreviated as it had been. Con’s lover didn’t like me—that much she’d made plain—and I hardly blamed her. As their captor and Con’s judge and executioner in effect, whether I wielded the ax myself or not, I didn’t expect to be loved for my actions.
And yet she’d urged me to marry the man. It took me by surprise, but I’d quickly deciphered the implications. That meant Con hadn’t proposed marriage to me out of impulse or some sudden affection of the moment. Not that I’d fooled myself that he’d succumbed to some sort of romantic love-at-first-sight nonsense. Some of the younger—and more foolish—of my ladies might coo over such stories, but if one allows cool logic to prevail, it becomes obvious that instant attraction has nothing to do with deeper emotions. It’s only physical attraction. Muscled shoulders, powerful height, big and capable hands—they all spoke to the animal nature in me, that part that craves protection and … whatever women craved from men.
Not things I needed or could ever have.
No, any connection I imagined between us had been spun of the heightened feelings of our mutual hatred of Anure, and perhaps a shared wish that our lives and world could’ve been a better place. Knowing that Con had been acting on a plan they’d concocted put an entirely different spin on things.
The impression he’d given of having some personal interest in me had been manipulation, something I normally perceived more quickly than that. More the fool me for succumbing to it even for a moment. I accepted fault for my own part in falling for it, spinning those fantasies of a deep connection, a familiarity that went beyond the time we’d met.
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